The art and popularity of alert distribution has grown significantly over recent years. Alert distribution allows an entity, such as a government agency or a business, to notify people in real-time of important information. As one example, the important information may be information related to an event that impacts public safety, such as severe weather, criminal activity (e.g., terrorist attack, child abduction, etc.), and/or national disaster. As another example, the important information may be internal business information. Often times, this important information is relevant only to particular locations (e.g., buildings) and/or particular people at those locations.
Existing alert distribution systems, such as the United States Emergency Alert System (EAS), typically use broadcast media, such as television or radio, to distribute alerts to the public. As such, these alerts systems may only be able to target larger geographic regions, such as cities, counties, or states, for distribution of alerts. More recently, alert systems have also begun distributing more individualized alerts, such as emails or text messages, to registered users. However, these alert systems require users to manually pre-register, and also may not take location into account when distributing the alerts. Accordingly, an improved alert system that distributes targeted alerts to particular locations and particular people at those locations, who are most affected by the information embodied in the alerts, is desirable.